


June 27th

by The_Shame_Basement



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Humanstuck, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 21:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17373545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Shame_Basement/pseuds/The_Shame_Basement
Summary: A little fluffy EriKar for your soul: Eridan and Karkat have been friends since forever, and now they're both grown-up disasters who are trying to hide the fact that their grade-school BFF has them feeling some kind of way.





	June 27th

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizardlicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/gifts).



> A gift for Lizardlicks! This was written off the cuff in the early hours of the morning, and I hope it doesn't show. :U

There are, admittedly, a lot of aspects of this whole scenario which are less than ideal, but the one that really gets your goat is the fact that Eridan Ampora, pretty-boy extraordinaire, has grown up exactly as hot as you were afraid he would.  
  
You’re mulling this over while he makes you a drink. He alleges it’s a White Russian, except you can see a carton of almond milk on the counter and there are definitely peach schnapps involved. You don’t have a great feeling about this– but then again, you rarely have great feelings about anything, except for the way his scarf complements the colors in his pants, and the movie-star-perfect tousled curl in his hair, which your own rat’s nest plays one hell of a squeaky second fiddle to. 

It’s not _fair_ , is the thing.  
He was always lean and graceful and doe-eyed, even in the third grade, and long before you really had a concept of beauty standards or attraction you knew he was _pretty_. Your older brother turned up his nose when Eridan started showing up on your doorstep in dyed hair and ripped jeans (excuse you, _distressed_ , like how he corrects you whenever you talk about them, and like you’re feeling right now while you listen to him hum as he pours you up this hellish concoction of a drink)– but you were enamored, intoxicated, head-over-heels for his sorry scene-kid ass.  
And you get the impression he felt something towards you too; gratitude, if not exactly love. He confided in you things he didn’t dare tell another soul: how he wears women’s pants so they flatter his ass, how he cries at night when he worries he’ll die alone, how your brother’s face when he gets mad is “a little bit maybe adorable”.  
You might’ve a little bit maybe punched him for that, if he’d been someone else. But as it was he backed right off and apologized the second he saw you glaring, and the hangdog look he gave you afterwards made your heart go way too mushy for you to be genuinely upset.  
  
Just like right now, as a matter of fact. He brings over your little cut-glass crystal tumbler full of nonsense and sets it down in front of you, standing expectantly on the other side of the counter to watch.  
You contemplate taking a sniff of it first, but think better of it and down a swallow instead.  
It tastes like stale ice cream and soap. You force your grimace into a thoughtful expression.  
  
His face falls.  
“Oh Kar, darlin’, I’m sorry. You don’t have to drink that– here, lemme get you some, uh, juice or somethin’–“  
He tries to take the glass out of your hands, but you move it away and glare at him until he subsides.  
  
“It’s good, Eridan.”  
  
The silence stretches between the two of you until he bites the inside of his cheek and cracks a tiny, crooked grin.  
“I know it’s not, Kar.”  
“It _is!”_ You whap your hand against the table. “Eridan, it’s– very alcoholic, which I can always appreciate, and the peach, it– _combines,_ combines beautifully with the coffee and the cream. It’s like a dessert in a glass.”  
  
He stares at you like you’re the best thing since sliced bread, and also like you’re a little crazy, and also like maybe you being crazy is what makes you the best. There’s a sparkle in his eyes that hurts your chest to see.  
“Kar Vantas, you are a terrible liar.”  
The corner of your mouth goes up, and you swirl the drink idly in a hand. “It is a little bit of a tiramisu shitstorm in there, yeah.”  
“There we go. There it is.”  
“Tastes like someone ate candied almonds and pissed them out into a bucket of day-old coffee.”  
“Physically implausible _and_ verbose. I like it.”  
  
He’s quiet a moment.  
“ ‘preciate you tryin’ not to hurt my feelins, though.”  
“Of course. I’m your friend, dude.”  
  
The sincerity in your voice startles you, and evidently it startles him as well, because he glances sharply up and stares at you for a long moment with big, dark eyes and a thin set to his mouth.  
  
“Did you know I used to think you hated me?”  
You have to laugh a little. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned it.”  
He presses on, and you’re not sure you like the determination in his eyes. “Yeah, well, ‘cause it was fuckin’ true, Kar, I mean– you’d shit-talk me all the time, I didn’t know what to make of it. But now it’s just… real nice, ‘cause I know how you w-work–“  
  
Uh oh. His stutter’s coming out. Something’s happening.  
  
“– um, h-how you work and all, and it just– er, means a lot to me that you’re ww-willing to– to, like, be gentle with me an’ whatnot w-when you don’t have to, ‘cause I just–“  
He glances away out the window, and finishes with a shaky voice.  
“I just feel a lot for you, is all.”  
  
You sit in silence with that pronouncement, and then nod.  
“I feel a lot for you too, Eridan.”  
  
It’ll be another week before the two of you manage to be honest about what you both mean by that. You’ll be the one who says it out loud first; Eridan’ll make a piercing sort of squawk and almost knock you off the deck chair with the force of his hug, and then the two of you will spend hours detailing how long you both waited for this single moment.  
And later on you’ll spend the night for the first time in another guy’s bed, and even later on he’ll learn how to make a proper White Russian for you (with a little amaretto in it, which you– to your surprise– enjoy).  
And even later after that, the two of you will kiss and kiss and abruptly remember you each promised each other when you were eleven that if you hadn’t gotten married by thirty you’d move in with each other, and in June on your twenty-fourth birthday, Eridan’ll buy you a huge tiered cake with the number 30 piped on it in bright red.  
  
And the cake will be thoroughly divine, and the kisses he gives you will be even better, but the feelings arcing through you right now– as he stands across the counter from you and gives you the beginnings of a relieved little smile– are pretty goddamn good too.

 

 


End file.
